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Remembered Today:

DP on Sht LE .303


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Can anyone tell me what DP stamped into the magazine for a .303 ShtLE stand for I've been unable to find anything on the net regarding these markings.

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Hi

as above but usually items which were worn, repaired or made of different parts

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1 hour ago, Dave1418 said:

Hi

as above but usually items which were worn, repaired or made of different parts

 

... and not to be fired live. In the CCF I think we sometimes fired blanks in them on exercises.

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I

42 minutes ago, MikB said:

 

... and not to be fired live. In the CCF I think we sometimes fired blanks in them on exercises.

I would not fire blanks in them either.

DP means parts are known to be out of spec. (hence the marking) I value my eyes and fingers and all the other bits too much.

I do have a ShtLE that was DP marked and then officially returned to firing standard as a .22 trainer (No2 MkIV* in WWII) by Parker Hale and I have fired that but I would not shoot anything in DP marked rifles (and I have five or six of them)

Chris

 

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11 hours ago, 4thGordons said:

I

I would not fire blanks in them either.

DP means parts are known to be out of spec. (hence the marking) I value my eyes and fingers and all the other bits too much.

I do have a ShtLE that was DP marked and then officially returned to firing standard as a .22 trainer (No2 MkIV* in WWII) by Parker Hale and I have fired that but I would not shoot anything in DP marked rifles (and I have five or six of them)

Chris

 

Too long ago to dispute that. I know as cadets we had about 10 shootable 303s, but how many of the others were defined DPs I don't know. We had a couple of quite dramatic mock battle exercises with a few blanks each and nobody lost any bits that I know of, but there may've been a couple of close-run incidents - more to do with behaviour than rifle condition.

 

Mercifully they didn't give us bayonets... :o

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For the Australian Army DP was "Drill Purpose". THe rifle or machine gun had been condemned for some reason, the firing pin cut short and the bolt face welded over. Two yellow bands were painted on the weapon, one around the butt and the other infront of the mid-barrel band (.303 SMLE rifles). They could not fire blanks.  There were also rifles condemned for live fire (I assume that the barrel was slightly bent or excessive rust spots), but could be used with blanks, these had the first 150mm from the muzzle painted green.

 

For Army Cadets back in the early 70s when the training was straight infantry minor tactics.  One of the training demonstrations before giving us blanks was for the Officer of Cadets (school teacher) to demonstrate that at point blank, a .303 blank will blow a hole straight through the sheet metal lid of an army ration tin.  THe blanks for the SLR were much safer by comparison.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Chasemuseum said:

For the Australian Army DP was "Drill Purpose". THe rifle or machine gun had been condemned for some reason, the firing pin cut short and the bolt face welded over. Two yellow bands were painted on the weapon, one around the butt and the other infront of the mid-barrel band (.303 SMLE rifles). They could not fire blanks.  There were also rifles condemned for live fire (I assume that the barrel was slightly bent or excessive rust spots), but could be used with blanks, these had the first 150mm from the muzzle painted green.

 

For Army Cadets back in the early 70s when the training was straight infantry minor tactics.  One of the training demonstrations before giving us blanks was for the Officer of Cadets (school teacher) to demonstrate that at point blank, a .303 blank will blow a hole straight through the sheet metal lid of an army ration tin.  THe blanks for the SLR were much safer by comparison.

 

 

To illustrate:

1916Lithweb2.jpg.684dfa73c1eb029bded1937b8aa7b80d.jpg

1916 Lithgow marked with a green stripe as a "blank firing" rifle (this one shows no sign of the green muzzle)

1941starLith.jpg.ac7db1aad6b11873fcae46506ff0e3ee.jpg

A WWII vintage Lithgow Drill Rifle (with cut firing pin and yellow bands)

1918BSAa.jpg.c584e7076b7bd877c0c521dfbd7cb366.jpg

A 1918 BSA  supplied to Australia post war, and heavily marked with Australian ownership stamps and with a Red stripe (do not fire) and yellow band (DP)

trimmed-both.jpg.a0a8bf3cd90d505c339a8f34c1c44b32.jpg

In Indian service DP rifles were often marked with a white band (as per British service) or a red and white band (Many Indian DP rifles also had a 1/2 hole drilled through the chamber)

These markings appear on both ShtLEs and Pattern 14s.

Indian DP bayonets often have a white band around the hilt

DSC_0414.JPG.b134e3de74ac88c5d3be0c04728b8430.JPG

Chris

 

 

 

 

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I had not seen the DP with the yellow muzzle previously.  The blank fire rifles in my school armoury had green muzzles painted the same, using a green paint very similar to the green paint in the example.

 

I presume the variations in locations of colour bands were from different armourers. The regular army armourers used to come through and inspect the functional rifles annually, probably about 200 of the 350 rifles. All of our Bren guns were DP. The inspection took 2 or 3 days.

 

This was all pre-1975 when the Whitlam government disbanded army cadets. They were latter re-formed but never had armouries of active weapons again. In the 1950s they had a wider range of weapons including Vickers, 2-inch & 3-inch mortars. I am not sure whether submachineguns were ever held in the school armouries, for my unit we had to go across the road to our battalion depot to collect them for training. Certainly in the 1950s training included live firing of the 6-pdr anti-tank gun, again I do not think these were kept at the school armouries.  

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